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Supreme Court · Associate Justice

James Byrnes

Democratic appointee: Appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)

Served 1941–1942 · 1 term

Confirmed by voice vote

Biography

James Francis Byrnes was an American judge and politician from South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in the executive branch, most prominently as the 49th U.S. Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman. Byrnes was also the 104th governor of South Carolina.

Source: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ideology over time

Byrnes and the 8 justices who overlapped with Byrnes, 1941

−4−20+21941More conservativeMore liberalO. RobertsStoneR. JacksonFrankfurterByrnesReedMurphyDouglasBlack
  • James Byrnes
  • 95% credible interval
  • Peer, appointed by a Democrat
  • Peer, appointed by a Republican
  • Court median
How to read this

Martin–Quinn scores place each justice on a single liberal–conservative dimension, estimated from their votes across terms, with scores allowed to shift from one term to the next. Higher is more conservative. The shaded band is the credible interval: wider when the record is thin, especially in a justice’s first terms, and narrower as votes accumulate.

Where Byrnes sits among all justices

Career average, every justice in the data set

−4−20+2+4−0.18

Byrnes’s range across terms

Served alongside Byrnes

8 justices

Closest career average first. Filled dot: the peer. Ring: Byrnes.

JusticeTogetherCareer avg
Harlan Stone1941career average 0.01 versus Byrnes at −0.18Stanley Reed1941career average 0.37 versus Byrnes at −0.18Felix Frankfurter1941career average 0.52 versus Byrnes at −0.18Robert Jackson1941career average 0.70 versus Byrnes at −0.18Frank Murphy1941career average −1.59 versus Byrnes at −0.18Hugo Black1941career average −1.76 versus Byrnes at −0.18Owen Roberts1941career average 1.52 versus Byrnes at −0.18William Douglas1941career average −4.70 versus Byrnes at −0.18

Scores: Martin, Andrew D. and Kevin M. Quinn. 2002. “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999.” Political Analysis 10:134–153, from mqscores.wustl.edu. Appointment data: Federal Judicial Center biographical directory. Biographies: Wikipedia, text abridged, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Portraits: public-domain images via Wikimedia Commons.